Malostranské náměstí

Malostranské náměstí (Lesser Town Square) is the main square of Prague's Malá Strana (Lesser Town) at the foot of Prague Castle. St. Nicholas Church and the adjacent building complex divides the square in an upper (western) and lower (eastern) part. From the square Mostecká ulice leads out to the Charles Bridge. The originally independent Prague town of Lesser Town was founded by the Czech King Otakar II Přemysl in 1257. It was built in the place of older settlements under Prague Castle, by the then only Judith Bridge. From the very beginning, the Lesser Town Ring was its focal point. It served as a marketplace for the castle and as a public meeting place for Lesser Town citizens. The Malá Strana town hall was located here, and the gallows and pillory were also located here in the Middle Ages. The town hall was built in 1470, plundered and destroyed by Swedish troops during the Thirty Years' War and renovated in Baroque style in 1630. The houses surrounding the square mostly belonged to wealthy nobles who built representative houses under the castle. After the heyday of Lesser Town under Emperor Charles IV and his successors, the town was almost completely burned down during the Hussite Wars in 1419 and was abandoned for a few years. Another catastrophic fire in 1541 destroyed large parts of Lesser Town and even engulfed the castle. After the fires, the houses, originally buil

Square data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).